


the knights of starlight and the aether

by xerampelinae



Series: the thrill of knowing how alone (known) we are [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Epic Poetry, Implications of immortality, M/M, Space Opera, implications of reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 15:56:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19429264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerampelinae/pseuds/xerampelinae
Summary: Sing, O grieving stars, of the end that was wrought.Speak, O universe, of love beyond any true conclusion.Weep, O deathless warriors, for your friends.-A translation of a traditional Galran epic referenced into your sharp and glorious thorn.





	the knights of starlight and the aether

Sing, O turning polestar, of those that wrought the end.  
Speak, O universe, of those that brought forth the beginning.  
Weep, O blood of Daibazaal, for those that fell for you.

Whisper, O endless cosmos, of those that came forth  
in gleaming, beaten armor when failure would have consumed all.  
Together crossed two knights weary of war, taking up their weapons   
once more. With hair and scars like starshine, the Knight of Starlight   
wielded an arm that burned with ultraviolet light. Beside him fought   
the Knight of the Aether, dark-haired and commanding a sword  
that never dulled. Together they rallied those rebel few remaining.

The tide turned under hand and blade of the knights, each unmatched   
in battle except by one another. Only by the hand of Zarkon’s witch  
were the knights’ efforts stymied, sending them into retreat for a time.  
Know, O young warrior, of the paradoxical victory in this flight.

Marmora’s sworn built their strength in knowledge and honor before   
the empire remade itself in hunger and in search for a new home  
that would love its people the way Daibazaal had once borne them.  
Only after Zarkon’s campaign of destruction did the surviving warriors   
remake themselves in the heart of secrecy. Together with the wayward   
blades born of the empire’s early days, the knights knelt and washed   
clean the blood and dust of the battlefield and shared their tale.

Once the knights had been a group of warriors five, fighting for a god  
masked like a lion and strong as a pride. The noble Knight of Starlight  
was the head and the heart of them, the loyal Knight of the Aether his sword.  
Like steel tresses, so too did their friends carry them: with keen eye,   
the Knight of Deepwater kept watch for trouble, and the Knights of Earthmetal  
and Earthwood built deep, stabilizing anchors into their hard-fought days.

When the warriors fought with resonant hearts, their strength was great   
enough to face down an army, to fight Zarkon and his witch Haggar,   
whose face was the very image of Honerva’s. A great war came within orbit  
of the knights’ home planet, and so too were they drawn unto the battlefield.   
In the end the warriors earned victory, only to be scattered across the universe,   
and the knights of Starlight and the Aether beyond, to fight an old war anew.

In the days before Zarkon’s ceaseless war, the universe was younger  
and its span far lesser, with only scattered galaxies nascent and weak.  
The space between worlds cracked open like a great fissure  
beyond the span between any planets. Only once before did that   
boundary split open so greatly, when the emperor Zarkon sought  
in its fearsome energies the salvation of his bride Honerva--  
just as it slew them, so too did it transform and revive them--  
raising twisted, powerful revenants out of unquiet death.

From those days the denizens of Gal built forth an empire in blood   
and keen weapons’ edge in unquenched hunger for expansion.  
Even fair Alfor, former right hand to Zarkon and King of the Alteans   
and their hundred planets could not stem the full force of great fleet.  
Alfor fell on the battlefield to monstrous Zarkon’s ever-changing blade,  
only the first of their former comrades to perish to it. After followed vine-strong   
Trigel of Dalterion, seeking to gain time for others to flee. Thereafter   
fell sea-fluid Blaytz of Nalquod, and bronze-hewn Gyrgan of Rygnirath.  
And so began the fell second reign of Zarkon of Daibazaal--  
may the walls of his tomb be ever-strong, and forever seal him within.

The knights of Starlight and the Aether were long battle-wearied,   
but hearing the struggles of Marmora’s sworn promised further aid.  
As if by unified mind the knights fought, each unassuming and yet   
compelling as gravity, always ready before their partner called out.  
Few lieutenants of Zarkon could survive a single battle against one   
of the knights, and none bound by idolatry survived the war.

No doubt of the knights’ loyalty to each other could linger long, not least  
knowing the promises linking them. Before one grim battle the Knight   
of Starlight spoke. “None may live to survive this war, nor even this battle.   
Even this soldier could not promise you the span of another solar cycle.   
Would you not forget this all and live beyond us all?”

Before the span of silence could grow overlong, the Knight of the Aether  
answered. “No, for I swore to fight at your side as many times as it takes,   
even unto the end. As long as you fight so too shall I. Let me stay at your side.”  
And so the knights remained together through uncountable cycles, that even   
the witch Honerva knew that the weakness of one lay in love of the other.

Know, O child of lost Gal, that even the cruellest of castings could not   
succeed in parting the knights from their vows--for just as the grave   
and its shadow could not separate Zarkon from Honerva and likewise  
Honerva from Zarkon, so too was the Knight of the Aether in loyalty  
to his greatest heart’s bond, his love the Knight of Starlight--and instead  
the twisted enchantment in the silvered knight’s arm was cut free.

When the final battle came, with Zarkon’s body an empty shell  
once more, there stood only cruel Honerva, twisted and powerful,  
against the knights. With a new-forged arm unsusceptible to castings,  
the Knight of Starlight drove back the witch. The clear-seeing Knight  
of the Aether guarded them from Honerva’s insidious castings. Beyond  
the span of the witch’s reach, the universe’s rebels stormed the fleet,  
holding back the tide. Finally Honerva called forth the crackling void   
to consume the knights and all the worlds beyond with ceaseless hunger.

As one the knights let forth flow their quintessence, as alike as if   
unleashed from a single being to form a mirror that turned back  
the casting on its caster. And so the monstrous Honerva met her end,  
but so too brought forth the end of the knights, for their unpracticed  
casting formed an imperfect mirror. Where the battle beyond was spared,   
the knights were unshielded and vulnerable, and died in each other’s arms  
before any aid could reach them.

Promise, O ceaseless universe, that their deaths were not infinite.  
There was no kin left to wash their cooling bodies with honest tears,  
nor to share the silk thread of their days and carry forth their memory  
in living hearts. Those surviving blades could not leave the knights  
unhonored, so from the strength of their covenant was forged new rituals   
that might be carried out by grieving kith. The blades wept for their friends  
and stood hopeful but knowing sentinel the span of a sidereal day. 

The knights’ damaged craft was rebuilt into a final berth in which to rest  
and within, the knights placed that they not be parted in death where   
even wandering life could not separate them. Then came the search  
for the craft’s destination, from distant constellation and through  
populous system, until the Knight of the Aether’s blade came alight  
before a new-formed galaxy and the emergent star it spun around.  
Only then did the blades launch forth the knights’ craft, gathering  
their scattered memories to anchor them in measured word.

Carry, O wandering scions, this simple tale with you as you go forth:  
of the honor-silvered Knight of Starlight, and the gold-true Knight  
of the Aether, children of a world beyond. Long ago they fought   
Zarkon and his witch, and in victory were cast forth to protect   
the people of another world. 

Swear, O beloved cosmos, that the knights will come again,  
not in unquiet death but in dreams reborn from peace. The blood   
of Daibazaal will carry them forth--even unto the end of all things,  
names and days hung in the stars--and we will remember their words  
when all else has faded into the attenuation and buzz of the void.  
O sweet knights, sail forth through the stars and endure in memory.

Sing, O grieving stars, of the end that was wrought.  
Speak, O universe, of love beyond any true conclusion.  
Weep, O deathless warriors, for your friends.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm kind of trying to distract myself from a thing that is happening soon so here we go. this work is inspired in part by the iliad and corrax 7:17 (the latter unintentionally)
> 
> while this keith and shiro could have been from _a god big enough to hold your love,_ they are not. because those ones live to become old marrieds.
> 
> find me on twitter @belovedbacon


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